Gheeyar~Sindhi Jalebi! A video Recipe

Dr Rajesh Khatwani, is a passionate cook and enthusiastic baker. Let me introduce Dr Khatwani, in his own words…“I am a practicing pediatrician in Ahmadabad. Wild life photography and cooking difficult dishes are two of my favorite hobbies. It started with cakes and kulfis—I learnt from my mother. I have tamed few of challenging dishes; Rasgullas, Sugar free Rasmalai ( Which won me 1st prize in male medicos cooking contest), Egg less Pineapple pastries (1st prize), Pizzas, Christmas cake and egg less baked caramel custard (on TV9 Gujarati ) and Khorak which was telecast on ETV Gujarati. ( I was first male viewer who was invited for cooking in their kitchen). My fresh orange cake and fresh Pineapple cake are always in demand by my family”.

And here is what he shares with us, regarding Gheear/Gheeyar, a Sindhi delicacy…

“Gheeyar is a Sindhi special Holi recipe. A well fermented maida batter is poured in hot oil with 5 fingers in a circulatory movements. Fried Gheeyar is then transferred to sugar syrup. It is commonly known as Sindhi Ghevar but it is quite different from Ghevar and Jalebi. After my Khorak show, I decided to try Gheeyar. It took lot of trials over months together before I could define a final fool proof recipe. I could present it on ETV Rasoi show on 16th March 2014. I am glad to mention that this ETV rasoi show video also will be the first video on Gheeyar available on net just like my Khorak show video. I am thankful to ETV Rasoi show for giving me chance to present such challenging Sindhi dishes and to Alka Keswani for inviting me to present it on SindhiRasoi.com”

Gheeyar is a Sindhi Sweet made during Holi festival, a huge crunchy jalebi , it is most sought after sweet during the festival of colours !

Ingredients

For batter:

Before Fermentation

½ kg All Purpose flour

1 cup Curd

1.5 cup Water (1 cup means 240ml)

After Fermentation

4 tbsp All purpose flour

2 tbsp Gram flour (Besan )

Edible Food colour -1/4+1/8 tsp (Kesar Yellow)

For Syrup

2.5 cups Sugar

1 cup Water

5 Green cardamoms

½ tsp Alum powder

For Garnishing

Pistachios

Almonds,

Silver varq

Rose petals (Preferably Organic)

Method

Mix All purpose flour, curd and water and keep the mix at room temp for minimum 48 hrs and for 3 days in Winter.

Stir it every 12 hours.You will see that the dough gets doubled in size within 12-24 hrs.This semisolid mix becomes the batter of thin pouring consistency after the fermentation for 48 hrs. This is very crucial step for Gheear making.

Now add 4 tbs of Maida to make it of right consistency--little thicker and to reduce its sourness.

Add 2 tbsp of besan to give crispiness to Gheeyar.

Add color and the batter is ready.

Meanwhile, make a sugar syrup by dissolving sugar in water and making ½ string syrup--i.e heat it to the level of 104 cg. Add cardamom and Alum powder to prevent recrystallization.

In a pan,heat oil with ring mould in it and keep the flame to medium. Mix the batter with hand vigorously. Dip all fingers of your hand up to knuckles in the batter and make a net like design inside a ring mould by rotating all 5 fingers in circular fashion for 4-5 times and then bringing all 5 fingers together to make the thick border of Gheeyar.(Watch the video to understand the technique properly).

Fry it till crispy, flip it and fry other side also. Dip it in Sugar syrup for a minute or so. Remove it in a plate.

You can use a plain plastic bottle, instead---Make 5 holes of approx 6 mm diameter in the base of big Jalebi bottle. Fill the batter in bottle to half. Make Gheeyar in similar way with bottle and flip the bottle and make border with single main nozzle.

Thank you Dr Khatwani, for honoring my blog by sharing this wonderful video recipe. I am sure this is going to help so many Sindhis, as well as Non Sindhis, who thought that Gheeyar could be only bought from sweet shops.